New findings suggest that an enzyme in the brain known as PI3 kinase might control the increased generation of body heat that helps burn off excess calories after eating a high-fat meal. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
In the initial stages of sleep, energy levels increase dramatically in brain regions found to be active during waking hours, according to new research. These results suggest that a surge of cellular energy may replenish brain processes needed to function normally while awake. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
If someone is rude to you at work or if you witness rudeness you are more likely to make mistakes, according to one expert. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
The deaths of nearby relatives has a curious effect on the bacterium Caulobacter crescentus -- surviving cells lose their stickiness. Biologists report that exposure to the extracellular DNA released by dying neighbors stops the sticky holdfasts of living Caulobacter from adhering to surfaces, preventing cells from joining bacterial biofilms. Less sticky cells are more likely to escape established colonies, out to where conditions may be better. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
An incidental discovery in a wood products lab has produced a new pressure-sensitive adhesive that may revolutionize the tape industry -- an environmentally benign product that works very well and costs much less than existing adhesives based on petrochemicals. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
A new study casts doubt on the theory that oxidative stress shortens lifespan. Researchers have identified mutations in 10 different genes of worms (genes believed to have counterparts in humans) that extend their lifespan without reducing the level of oxidative stress the worms suffer. The results contradict the popular theory that production of toxic reactive oxygen species in tissues is responsible for aging. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 9:00 am
It's seen as a sign of getting old, but scientists have discovered that arthritis is not just a human problem as a study lasting 50 years reveals how moose suffer from an identical form of the condition. The research also casts new light on how malnutrition early in life can lead to the disorder in both moose and humans. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am
Scientists are reporting a possible explanation for the symptoms of anxiety and depression that occur in some patients taking the popular statin family of anti-cholesterol drugs, and reported by some individuals on low-cholesterol diets. These symptoms could result from long-term, low levels of cholesterol in the brain, the report suggests. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am
Learning and memory impairments are important contributors to the disability associated with schizophrenia. These functional impairments emerge long before the onset of other symptoms associated with schizophrenia, suggesting that they are a consequence of a disturbance in brain development. In order to investigate the impact of early life disturbances in brain development upon learning and memory, researchers exposed fetal monkeys to x-rays and then examined their behavior when they were adults, approximately 5 years later. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am
A study of both elementary school-aged and college-aged subjects found that youths who exceeded the two hours per day of screen time recommended by the American Academy of Pediatrics were 1.5 to 2 times more likely to be above average in attention problems. Source: ScienceDaily: Latest Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 6:00 am
AP - The largest U.S. oil refinery violated federal air pollution laws thousands of times during the last five years, releasing 10 million pounds of illegal pollution, including cancer-causing toxins, without facing proper fines or being forced to fix equipment, environmental groups claim. Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 4:02 am
AP - A Tokyo court on Wednesday convicted a New Zealand activist of assault and obstructing Japanese whaling ships in the Antarctic Ocean, and sentenced him to a suspended prison term.
Reuters - BP's boss met officials from an Abu Dhabi state fund on Wednesday as hopes for fresh investment and progress toward closing a leaking U.S. oil well lifted the company's battered shares.
AFP - BP's chief executive Tony Hayward was in Abu Dhabi on Wednesday amid speculation Britain's oil giant is seeking support from foreign sovereign wealth funds in the wake of the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster.
An aircraft that draws its power from the Sun starts a round-the-clock test flight to assess whether it can fly in darkness. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:30 am
Time.com - How long you live has a lot to do with your environment and lifestyle, but exceptional longevity may have even more to do with your genes Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 7 Jul 2010 | 3:30 am
AP - An experimental solar-powered plane whose makers hope to one day circle the globe using only energy collected from the sun took off for its first 24-hour test flight Wednesday.
AP - Oil from the ruptured well in the Gulf of Mexico is seeping into Lake Pontchartrain north of New Orleans, threatening another environmental disaster for the huge body of water that was rescued from pollution in 1990s.
Live coverage as Muir Russell review into University of East Anglia's hacked climate change emails delivers findings. With Damian Carrington
11.15am: Thanks for the comments. Looks like we have a mixed crowd.
@gpwayne: sorry for any confusion. I agree with you, as per my 10.13am post:
This is not part of today's inquiry but even if it was the report couldn't do anything other than fully back the assertion that greenhouse gases emitted as a result of human activities are causing the world to warm.
@gubulgaria, @shhush: I am in no doubt that claims of whitewash will abound from those sceptical of man-made global warming. But wouldn't it be polite to wait until the report is actually out?
On Twitter, AJCorner – aka Cardiff University psychologist Adam Corner – objects to Fred Pearce calling scientists a "priesthood" on BBC Radio 4's Today programme. That topic loomed large at a debate I chaired at the Royal Institution last month.
11.00am: Now I hate to be a tease, but I have just got a copy of the Muir Russell review – under pain-of-death embargo until 1pm. So I can't say more but it has led me to my first reverse ferret of the day of the day: the report is 160 pages long, not 500.
The BBC's Richard Black previews the report comprehensively, and AP does the same. Black's BBC colleague Roger Harrabin has been diving into the detail of a previous inquiry into the climate emails – the Science Appraisal Panel led by Lord Oxburgh. Harrabin says the terms of reference of that review were switched – sleight of hand according to MP Phil Willis – from being about the quality of the science to the integrity of the science, ie from "was the science right?" to "was it carried out correctly?", a distinction not lost on critics such as Climate Audit blogger Stephen McIntyre. We'll be getting McIntyre's reaction later.
Over at dotearth, Andy Revkin asks: "Was the East Anglia incident a crime?" He has asked six key scientists about Norfolk police's investigation into whether the emails were leaked or hacked from UEA. In short, the researchers have not been impressed by the police efforts. Stanford University's Stephen Schneider has been the victim of deaths threats – read our story here and some of expletive-laden emails here – and told Revkin "when I sent all my hate emails to Norfolk [police] some months back at their request, they bounced back with a spam filter saying 'too many expletives'! Pretty funny." Our take on the question of hack v leak is here.
I don't expect the Muir Russell report to be as much of an insult to the public as the Penn State report [into the hockey stick scientist Michael Mann] or the Oxburgh report – both of which set the bar pretty low. Or at least, as an insult, it will not be so contemptuous of the public as to contain no documentation and negligible evidence that the authors had read even a few of the emails.
I'm 100% confident that they will make concessions on topics where the tide has already run against CRU – data archiving and availability, topics where the Commons science and technology committee has already expressed its extreme impatience with climate scientists. These are easy issues for Muir Russell to concede and you can pretty much book them already. I'd pay attention to the report on these issues only if Muir Russell unexpectedly supports some forms of data petulance.
10.13am: I'll be taking a swing round the web to see who is saying what shortly, but first let's start with what to look for in the Muir Russell report.
Manipulation of data: The allegation is that the scientists fiddled their data to suit their global warming prejudices. A big part of that was an argument over the location of Chinese weather stations. Two previous inquiries rejected these charges, and Russell is likely to as well.
The report itself will be released at 1pm UK time, and we'll have the news from David Adam, analysis from Fred Pearce, the report itself (all 500 pages or so) and then lots more reaction to follow.
But there's plenty to get through this morning – it's a long and rather sorry tale that raises some big questions about science itself. So I'll be looking at the allegations, what the Muir Russell inquiry was tasked with, the previous inquiries and more.
As a starter here are five of the key emails, with commentary by Fred Pearce, including the infamous "trick" to "hide the decline", which was anything but a trick. And here's my Q&A to get you up to speed for what will be a fascinating day
Please get in touch with your tips and comments, either in the comments below or via Twitter – @guardianeco.
AFP - A New Zealand anti-whaling activist received a suspended two-year jail term Wednesday over clashes with Japanese whalers in Antarctic waters in which he hurled stink bombs and scaled a harpoon ship.
The third and final independent report triggered by the so-called climategate emails will be published today.
More than 1,000 hacked emails from a server at the University of East Anglia's climatic research unit were seized upon by climate change sceptics when they were published last November in the run up to the Copenhagen climate summit.
The emails revealed scientists speaking in scathing terms about their critics, discussing ways to stonewall sceptics and talking about how to exclude opponents from peer-reviewed journals.
The emails spread across 13 years were used by critics to portray climate scientists as manipulating the data to back up the theory of manmade global warming.
Sir Muir said in February that his panel would examine whether there was any evidence that scientists at the CRU doctored or suppressed data, perverted the peer review process or improperly blocked freedom of information requests.
Specifically the review has examined whether emails about tree-ring measurements and references to a "trick" to "hide the decline" amounted to manipulation.
One of the original panel members, Philip Campbell, was forced to resign after it emerged he gave an interview defending researchers at the centre.
Some scientists have said the scandal has made it impossible for researchers to hide data from their critics.
In an interview with the Guardian, Mike Hulme, a professor of climate change at the UEA, said: "The release of the emails was a turning point, a game-changer ... Already there is a new tone. Researchers are more upfront, open and explicit about their uncertainties, for instance."
The mating habits of deep-sea squid have been revealed for the first time, after the discovery of a male squid with a huge elongated and erect penis. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 2:11 am
The mating habits of deep-sea squid have been revealed for the first time, after the discovery of a male squid with a huge elongated and erect penis. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 7 Jul 2010 | 2:02 am
The five most controversial emails leaked from UEA's Climatic Research Unit with expert commentary from Fred Pearce on what they do – and don't – reveal
The smoking gun that wasn't
From: Phil Jones Date: Tue, 16 Nov 1999 13:31:15 +0000 Dear Ray, Mike and Malcolm, ...I've just completed Mike's Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith's to hide the decline. Cheers Phil
This, according to Sarah Palin and US senator James Inhofe, is a smoking gun that shows Jones trying to "hide the decline in temperatures" since 1998. Not so. First, note the date of the email: 1999. It came at the end of a decade of exceptional warmth, in which 1998 was the warmest year on record. There was no decline to hide. And note the words about "adding in the real temperatures". Jones and Mike Mann had been adding real temperatures to the end longer graphs of temperature estimates based on tree rings. The only thing being "hidden" was tree ring data that did not match reality.
Conflict of interest
From: Phil Jones To: "Michael E. Mann" Date: Wed Mar 31 09:09:04 2004 Mike, ... Recently rejected two papers (one for JGR and for GRL) from people saying CRU has it wrong over Siberia. Went to town in both reviews, hopefully successfully. If either appears I will be very surprised, but you never know with GRL. Cheers Phil
Jones did not specify which papers he had rejected. But one appears to have been by Lars Kamel. He claimed to find much less warming in Siberia than Jones. It was a rare example of someone trying to replicate Jones's analysis – one of the key ways in which science validates itself. So on the face of it, there was good reason to publish, even if flaws needed correcting. But the paper was rejected by Geophysical Research Letters, partly it seems because Jones "went to town". This raises important questions about conflict of interest in scientific peer review, and how Jones wielded his power as a reviewer.
Biasing the IPCC assessment?
From: Phil Jones To: "Michael E. Mann" Subject: HIGHLY CONFIDENTIAL Date: Thu Jul 8 16:30:16 2004
Mike, ... I can't see either of these papers being in the next IPCC report. Kevin and I will keep them out somehow - even if we have to redefine what the peer-review literature is ! Cheers Phil
Jones is writing about two new papers. One, from two known sceptics Ross McKitrick and Pat Michaels, claimed to show a correlation between the geographical patterns of warming and of industrialisation, suggesting that local urbanisation rather than the global influence of greenhouse gases were often key in warming on land.
Jones evidently wanted to use his position as a lead author to keep the paper out of the IPCC report. In the event, the paper was not mentioned in early chapter drafts, but was added to a final version, where its findings were dismissed as "not statistically significant". Critics say that by keeping it out of early drafts, Jones prevented reviewers scrutinising his conclusion.
Rewriting the rules of Freedom of Information
From: Phil Jones To: santer1@xxxxxxxxx.xxx, Tom Wigley Date: Wed Dec 3 13:57:09 2008 Ben, When the FOI requests began here, the FOI person said we had to abide by the requests. It took a couple of half hour sessions - one at a screen, to convince them otherwise showing them what CA [ClimateAudit] was all about. Once they became aware of the types of people we were dealing with, everyone at UEA (in the registry and in the Environmental Sciences school – the head of school and a few others) became very supportive. I've got to know the FOI person quite well and the Chief Librarian - who deals with appeals... Cheers Phil
Climate Audit is the web site run by Steve McIntyre, a Canadian mathematician peppering Jones with requests for his data. There is no legal basis for rejecting FOI requests on the basis of the "types of people" they are. The records show that the university turned down most FOI requests, from McIntyre and others, for CRU data. Of 105 requests concerning CRU submitted up to December 2009, the university had by late January 2010, acceded in full to only 10.
Deleting the evidence
Phil Jones wrote to Mike Mann in 2008:
Mike, Can you delete any emails you may have had with Keith re AR4? Keith will do likewise... Can you also email Gene and get him to do the same? I don't have his new email address. We will be getting Caspar to do likewise... Cheers Phil
British sceptic David Holland had recently asked CRU for all emails sent and received by its tree-ring specialist Keith Briffa about the recently published IPCC report, of which Briffa was a lead author. Briffa had been in correspondence with Mann and two American researchers, Gene Wahl and Caspar Ammann, who had a forthcoming paper defending Mann's controversial "hockey stick" graph. This secret correspondence was outside the IPCC's formal review process and seemed to break its rules.
Clearly, CRU people wanted to hide this correspondence from FOI requests. This email persuaded the UK's Information Commissioner's Office that the university was "acting so as to prevent intentionally the disclosure of requested information", and thus requests were "not dealt with as they should have been under the legislation".
You can examine all the climategate emails on this site.
• Join a panel of experts for our live debate in London on 14 July to examine what the hacked climate science emails do – and do not – reveal
AP - Emergency crews rescued stranded motorists and several children in a house trailer from flooded Oklahoma City streets but were searching for a teenage boy swept away by a creek. Source: Yahoo! News: Science News | 6 Jul 2010 | 8:44 pm
The UK's deep store for nuclear waste should open around 2040 - but spending cuts or lack of community support could delay plans. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 Jul 2010 | 8:32 pm
Meerkat groups "traditionally" get up early or late - a culture that is passed down through generations, say scientists. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 Jul 2010 | 7:08 pm
Jim Bohlen, Quaker, peace activist, and co-founder of Greenpeace, died on Monday. He was 84. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 7:01 pm
At least ten creatures that possibly represent new species were discovered during the six-week journey aboard the U.K. research vessel the James Cook. Source: Livescience.com | 6 Jul 2010 | 5:24 pm
Where do we go when we die? Captain Pilkington and Weedon's royal pavilion; Goal-line technology and higher intelligence
Quantum physics theorises that a multidimensional multiverse is a certainty, with atoms and elements moving between dimensions. Could it be that after death our consciousness is transported to another sphere?
This seems to me to belong to that group of questions that really cannot have any reasonable answer. Yes, it might be possible; in the same way that it is possible that the centre of a black hole is full of old copies of the Guardian, or that a series of blue china teapots circle the sun beyond the orbit of Pluto. There are no physical laws that say these things cannot be so; but what reason is there to believe in an idea, unless there is some sort of evidence for it?
Is there any evidence that we have a consciousness that can exist independent of our physical brains in the first place? I have never seen any which is convincing. If there is no such thing, then speculating about where it might go to at some future date is rather meaningless. Nothing wrong with fantasising about such things though – that's always great fun.
Francis Blake, London N17
Just as a variety of evolutionary ideas were prevalent before the theory was set out definitively by Charles Darwin and Alfred Russel Wallace in 1859, so the notion of serial universes predated Einstein's theory of relativity and the subsequent concepts of quantum physics. The most notable Victorian expression of the multiple universe notion was written by the physicists Peter Guthrie Tait of Edinburgh and Balfour Stewart of Manchester in their 1875 book, The Unseen Universe, which rapidly went through 17 editions and postulated a succession of ever more "ethereal" universes.
Without the slightest tangible evidence, the authors implied that the human soul followed this postmortem pilgrimage and thereby attained a wholly non-material immortality. The Unseen Universe and its 1878 sequel, Paradoxical Philosophy, were brilliantly rubbished by the mathematician William Kingdon Clifford in the Fortnightly Review, while James Clerk Maxwell more gently chided the authors privately for attempting to go "beyond the range of science".
Gordon Booth, Edinburgh
Yes: that's the simple answer. I'm not religious, I don't believe in ghosts, but I do know that consciousness continues after death and eventually goes somewhere as yet unidentified. Like many people, I'm sure, I have my own proof of that.
I have a theory that the purpose of the universe is the generation of consciousness, ie a form of energy that is self-aware and can accumulate experience. But I might have to wait until my own death to prove it.
Laura Quigley, Plymouth
Where was the planned emergency capital in case of invasion during the Napoleonic wars?
Regarding the "royal pavilion" at Weedon (N&Q, 30 June): in 1803 the government of George III acquired land to build a large complex of buildings at Weedon Bec. Construction started in August 1804 and was completed in 1816. However, these were not a barracks but an ordnance depot, to hold weapons and ammunition in the centre of the country, as far as possible from any invasion by Napoleon's armies.
An essential part of the depot was housing for those who would work there. Captain Pilkington, the Royal Engineer supervising the construction, designed an impressive group of five homes for the ordnance officers, arranged as three blocks linked by substantial front garden walls: from a distance, these presented the appearance of one impressive building. The almost-white brick added to the effect. It was not long before this group became known as the pavilion.
But Weedon did not feature in the plans of George III. In the event of an invasion, he would lead his army and move to Chelmsford, if the enemy landed in Essex, or to Dartford, if they arrived in Kent. These and other government plans were outlined to the speaker, Charles Abbott, by prime minister Henry Addington, in two conversations on Christmas Day 1803.
Nelson and Wellington saw to it that there was no invasion, but the Weedon depot continued almost uninterruptedly as the major small arms depot for the British Army, including through two world wars.
Mike Rumbold, chairman, Weedon Bec History Society, Upper Stowe, Northampton
If there were a cleverer, more advanced species than us on this planet, how would we know? (With no way of knowing otherwise, doesn't every species think it's the brightest and most advanced?)
A cleverer species would have introduced goal-line technology by now.
Jack Cowell, Manchester
Any answers?
The Romans built a 50km aqueduct from Uzès to Nîmes in France with an overall fall of about 17 metres and an average gradient of 1/3000. How did they determine the fall, and maintain the gradient during building?
Chris Osman, Oxford
Will the human race ever evolve beyond religion?
Ben McCrory, Manchester
Why don't slugs eat grass?
Judith Ward, Clayton, Newcastle, Staffs
Send questions and answers to nq@guardian.co.uk. Please include name, address and phone number.
Since communication is tied to mating, feeding and more, these critical aspects of whale life may be impacted. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 5:00 pm
Oil from the Gulf of Mexico spill reaches all five US Gulf states as tar balls land on a beach in Galveston, Texas. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 Jul 2010 | 4:13 pm
If you were heading out for a leisurely bike ride, you might pack a snack. But what about a spin that covers about 2200 miles? Source: Livescience.com | 6 Jul 2010 | 4:00 pm
Several determined doctors have started bringing modern medical devices into the environmental fold. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 3:39 pm
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Songbirds such as sparrows and thrushes carry various forms of bird flu and could potentially spread the viruses to pigs and poultry, U.S. researchers reported on Tuesday.
Whether politicians win or lose may come down to how local athletes play the game. When local football and basketball teams were victorious, voters were more pleased with elected officials, a study appearing online July 6 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences finds. The capricious link between sports teams and politicians’ performance is a clear example of how irrelevant events can shape important judgments.
The idea that emotions from unrelated events spill over into other areas isn’t new, says study co-author Neil Malhotra of the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Lab studies have found that in the afterglow of a free gift, people rate their cars and televisions more highly, for instance.
“There is a lot of evidence of the predictable irrationality of human beings,” Malhotra says. “The question is, does this stuff actually happen in the real world?”
So Malhotra and his colleagues tallied up the wins and losses of 62 Division I college football teams from 1964 through 2008 and found how voters in each team’s home county behaved. The study excluded the University of Connecticut and University of South Florida, which are relative newbies to Division I status, and excluded the University of Southern California and UCLA because they share Los Angeles county.
A local football team’s win in the 10 days before an election garnered the incumbent senator, governor or president (or his or her political party) an extra 1.61 percentage points of the vote, the researchers found. They found no effect for games played earlier than two weeks before the election, suggesting that the game must be fresh in the voter’s mind to have an effect.
The find is “a pretty arresting result,” Malhotra says. The extra points for incumbents from counties with winning teams means that voters are basing their judgments on “their mood and feelings rather than analyzing the data,” he says.
Political scientist Herb Weisberg of Ohio State University in Columbus says that while the study is statistically sound and based on interesting logic, it didn’t adjust for the overall political leanings of a county. “They find that the vote in a county is 1 or 2 percent more favorable to the incumbent’s party when a local team wins, but what if the whole state is 3 or 4 percent more favorable to the incumbent’s party when that team wins?”
In a second analysis, the researchers surveyed over 3,000 people at three times during the 2009 NCAA college basketball tournament. Respondents were asked to name their favorite team and then were asked to rate the performance of President Obama. On average, people whose favorite teams had just won a March Madness game rated the president 2.3 percentage points higher than did those whose teams had recently lost.
The researchers also found that the importance of these irrelevant events was shattered when they were pointed out. When the respondents were explicitly told about the results of the basketball game before they were asked to judge the president’s job performance, the effect disappeared completely, Malhotra and his colleagues found. “Making people more aware of these biases is how to counteract them,” Malhotra says.
Pointing out subtle effects like these and learning how to eliminate them may ultimately help people process information in a more reasoned manner, Malhotra says. “Just because we’re looking at college football doesn’t mean [the research is] trivial.”
The same principle at work in the new study could help explain other phenomena, too, Weisberg says. For instance, the results could explain why a good economy leads people to vote for the incumbent.
“But what are the limits of this logic?” Weisberg asks. “Should victories by pro football teams also affect voting in the area in which the team plays? What about victories by high school football teams? Would Obama have gone up in the public opinion polls if the U.S. had won the World Cup?”
About 15,000 charge stations will be introduced in four states and the District of Columbia. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 3:14 pm
Changing ocean chemistry could turn some fish species into easy meals, with senses of smell so scrambled they’re actually attracted to their predators.
Researchers discovered the potentially deadly problem through a series of experiments on common reef-dwelling fish that were raised in seawater with acidity levels resembling what’s expected by the century’s middle and end.
“Instead of avoiding the odor of a predator, they’re attracted to it,” said biologist Douglas Chivers of the University of Saskatchewan. “When you take them into the wild, their behavior has changed. We ended up with huge mortality.”
When carbon dioxide dissolves in seawater, the concentration of hydrogen ions increases, making it more acidic. Global oceanic pH — the scale used to measure acids and bases — has changed by 0.1 in the last century. The number looks small, but in geological terms it’s a massive change, and Earth’s oceans are more acidic now than at any time in the last 650,000 years. Scientists say marine pH could change by another 0.3 by the year 2100.
Concerns about the effects of changing ocean acidity on animals has focused on weakening shells in corals, crustaceans and shellfish, but fish may also be affected. Chivers’ findings, published July 5 in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, build on earlier work showing acidified waters make it hard for clownfish to find home, a feat they accomplish by recognizing subtle olfactory cues in water.
In the latest study, the researchers raised clownfish and damselfish in the sort of water conditions expected by 2050 under current CO2 pollution rates, and those that could prevail by the century’s end if those rates don’t change. A control group was raised in current water acidity levels.
In an aquarium, clownfish from the control group instinctively fled from the scents of their natural predators. So did those in the mid-century group. But half the fish raised in end-of-century concentrations swam straight towards the scents. Had predators rather than scientists been waiting, they would have been eaten.
Damselfish were then raised in a similar set of conditions, and relocated to coral reefs in the wild. Once again, fish from the low- and mid-level acidity groups behaved normally, but those raised in higher levels were disoriented. The latter were between five and nine times more likely to die than the others.
In the future, the researchers plan to study ocean acidification’s effects on other species. They also want to know what happens to whole populations over multiple generations. Will species be wiped out? Or can they adapt, with acidity-resistant fish breeding fast enough to replace those lost to olfactory disorientation?
“That’s the million-dollar question,” said Chivers. “We don’t know yet. It’s probably going to depend on how fast acidification happens.”
Citation: “Replenishment of fish populations is threatened by ocean acidification,” by Philip Munday, Danielle Dixson, Mark McCormick, Mark Meekan, Maud Ferrari, and Douglas Chivers. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Vol. 107 No. 28, July 5, 2010.
The "Muir Russell" report into questions raised by last year's climate e-mail hack prepares to release its conclusions. Source: BBC News | Science & Environment | UK Edition | 6 Jul 2010 | 2:43 pm
A sandstone sculpture of a kneeling man sharpening a knife could be a long forgotten work by Michelangelo, according to an Italian scholar who has rediscovered the statue in a private collection. Measuring 111 centimeters (3.65 feet), the statue is ... Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 2:33 pm
How can you swim upstream in the river of time? Physicists Charles Liu and Michio Kaku have some answers. Source: Livescience.com | 6 Jul 2010 | 1:59 pm
El Nino is gone, and Pacific Ocean temperatures point to the arrival of La Nina, which could help hurricanes form in the Atlantic. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 1:53 pm
Ten new possible species could change everything about the way we think about deep-sea life in the Atlantic Ocean.
Most of the creatures are so strange, it is hard to know which direction they swim or where their mouths are.
The images were captured by researchers from the University of Aberdeen during more than 300 hours of diving with a remotely operated vehicle between 2,300 feet and 12,000 feet deep along the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the largest mountain range on Earth, which runs down the center of the Atlantic Ocean between Europe and Africa on the east and the Americas on the west.
Three of the species, which look like colorful wavy worms, belong to a group of creatures called Enteropneust, which is believed to be the evolutionary link between backbone and invertebrate animals. Previously only a few specimens of the group, from the Pacific Ocean, were known to science.
“They have no eyes, no obvious sense organs or brain but there is a head end, tail end and the primitive body plan of backboned animals is established,” said Monty Priede, one of the lead researchers on the project, part of the Census of Marine Life.
One of the most surprising observations by the researchers was how different the species are on either side of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, just tens of miles apart. “[The two sides of the ridge are] mirror images of each other,” Priede said. “but that is where the similarity ended.”
“It seemed like we were in a scene from Alice Through the Looking Glass,” Pried said. “This expedition has revolutionized our thinking about deep-sea life in the Atlantic Ocean. It shows that we cannot just study what lives around the edges of the ocean and ignore the vast array of animals living on the slopes and valleys in the middle of the ocean.”
Captions courtesy University of Aberdeen
Above:
Deepsea Jellyfish
Trachymedusa: Feeds on plankton and small crustacea near the sea floor.
As the eastern U.S. sizzles, climate data are piling up that the heatwave is a directly result of global warming. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 1:36 pm
Contrary to popular belief, simply being old does not make a person more vulnerable to scams. Source: Discovery News - Top Stories | 6 Jul 2010 | 1:16 pm
Getting over romantic rejection might be akin to kicking an addiction, new research on the brain suggests. Source: Livescience.com | 6 Jul 2010 | 12:52 pm
Carole Jahme shines the cold light of evolutionary psychology on readers' problems. This week: Sexual jealousy
From an anonymous male Dear Carole, I have in the past suffered from "retroactive jealousy": an irrational jealousy focused on your partner's past. I've since realised that this is surprisingly common, having spoken to numerous men with the same issue. This mostly comprises a jealous reaction to previous sexual partners (now long gone), and an obsessive dwelling on your partner's past behaviour.
These feelings can be destructive and difficult, although fortunately they can be overcome with some effort.
Do you have any insights into jealousy from a Darwinian perspective?
Carole replies: Psychologists use several terms to describe the various forms of sexual jealousy, including pathological jealousy, erotic jealousy, morbid jealousy, conjugal paranoia, jealous monomania, and psychotic/non-psychotic and obsessional jealousy.
Jealousy is seen in all human societies,1 and field studies of wild primates have shown that sexual jealousy is not peculiar to humans.2 Sexual jealousy, control and coercion are especially common in primate species where males control harems of females, such as langurs, baboons and gorillas.
Because sexual jealousy is universal, human societies have established baselines of behavioural jealousy that are widely tolerated and accepted as "natural". (In Texas, up until 1974, if a man found his wife in bed with her lover it was considered "reasonable" for him to shoot them both dead.)
However, a turn of the screw beyond this socially accepted level of sexual jealousy we start to see behaviour that teeters on the edge of obsession. Any intensification from this point onwards and the jealousy can be considered pathological.
A further increase in intensity and the jealousy becomes delusional, where the jealous partner is convinced their accusations of infidelity are correct. This is sometimes referred to as Othello syndrome.3 This form can further intensify with aggressive, unjustified interrogations and excessive sexual demands. The delusional behaviour may continue for years and is a likely manifestation of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). No amount of reassurance, pleading or begging will placate the paranoid delusional spouse.
It has been theorised that a mate-killing module has evolved in the brain to control females and restore the social status of the cuckolded male.1 In some Muslim societies females live in fear of an accusation of infidelity and subsequent "honour killing". Female langur monkeys live in fear of new males taking control of the troop by force and killing their babies.4 Violent acts by controlling males have, over aeons of evolution, ensured that the genes of these males are passed on to the next generation.
In modern human society, however, it is clear that much of this evolved behaviour is counterproductive. Would a rational male deliberately physically and psychologically damage his spouse and the mother of his children? The future success of the next generation hangs in the balance when a jealous, patriarchal male uses aggression to control the females in his life.
Most people would find the idea of a man increasing his reproductive fitness at the expense of the happiness of his spouse and an infant abhorrent. A woman sexually coerced and harassed by a jealous partner will not make a good mother, so a jealous male only harms himself when he harms his family.
You say that with effort you overcame your destructive, obsessive jealousy. May this give hope to others who struggle to rise above their ancient, hard-wired sexual obsession.
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This gorgeous star cluster doesn’t need a holiday to set off fireworks. Officially called NGC 3603, the small community of young stars is located about 20,000 light-years away in the constellation Carina.
Ultraviolet radiation and violent stellar winds from the cluster’s stars shoved away the cloud of gas and dust in which the stars formed, giving the Hubble Space Telescope’s new Wide Field Camera 3 a clear view. Hubble captured this image in August 2009 and December 2009, just a few months after the new camera was installed, in both visible and infrared light. The image shows a sharper view of the stars than an earlier image taken with Hubble’s NICMOS infrared camera in 2007, and traces sources of sulfur, hydrogen and iron.
Most of the stars in the cluster were born around the same time, but age differently depending on their masses. Clusters like NGC 3603 give astronomers a lab to study stars’ life cycles in detail, as well as a window into the origin of massive star formation in the distant universe. NGC 3603’s stars are among the most massive known. After they burn through their fuel, these stars will end their lives in spectacular supernova explosions.
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